The best part of having reliable friends in Japan is that I can always count of them, even in times when I don’t expect anything from them. A couple months ago, I was asked by Yasutaka Shimomukai from Tactical Art if I wanted to be a title sponsor for the “Custom Car Carnival” at HKS’ annual Premium Day event. HKS Premium Day is a huge event put on by HKS Japan every year that consists of not only a meet, but is also a track event held at Japan’s famed Fuji Speedway. It is such a huge and well-known event that I wouldn’t expect them to ever ask me for anything. This year, they wanted to put on more of a “car show” within the Premium Day event and so they created the Custom Car Carnival. The guys from Tactical Art are close with HKS Japan because they are very good friends with Keisuke Morita, whom you’ve seen a couple times here on this site prior and who also is one of the head engineers at HKS. To help with promotion throughout Japan, The Chronicles, as well as a host of other well-known worldwide brands were also asked to be represented at the event. Of course, I more than happily obliged and was proud to see The Chronicles name at such a historic event. Tactical Art would even put up a booth that represented both their shop as well as The Chronicles, which was really awesome. I was supposed to come up with some merchandise for them to sell at the event but I just didn’t have enough time, being that I had just returned from Japan the week prior…

If being a part of such a major event wasn’t cool enough, I even managed to get some coverage of it. The photos themselves were totally unexpected because Yasutaka didn’t even mention that he was doing any type of coverage. I figured he’d be too busy helping to organize the event that day so he wouldn’t have time to pull the camera out. A little less than two weeks ago, I looked inside one of my media accounts and noticed that there were two sets of photos from HKS Premium Day from him and he didn’t even tell me he had uploaded anything! I was excited. I didn’t get to see much of the event other than some snippets from various social media outlets and from some teaser shots from my buddy Sean over at Narita Dog Fight. Things have been pretty busy lately but I finally managed to find some time to go through them yesterday and so you’ll get to see some coverage today. It’s not too many photos and it is by no means “in-depth” but it showcases some really cool builds from the event and some cars that you may not have ever seen before, which is always a good thing. Enjoy and stayed tuned for Part 2 of 2 tomorrow…

We kick off the coverage of some shots detailing the journey to Fuji Speedway from Osaka to Oyama located in the Shizuoka Prefecture…

Tomoyuki Sasaki’s Civic Ferio all cleaned up and ready to go…

Toshiyuki Yanagi’s Integra Type R…

Fillin’ up at a ENEOS gas station…

Sasaki’s 99-00 Vi-RS converted Ferio on 15-inch CCWs….

Everytime I post a photo of this EP3 R, EP guys always ask for more. Sorry, this is the only shot I got today. Hopefully I’ll get more photos of it when I return to Japan later in the year….

Yasutaka’s HKS Supercharged AP1 S2000….

…and Yasutaka’s other car, this Lexus IS which is also on CCWs….

A quick late night snack before the long drive…

…along with some JDM-sized Red Bulls (Red Bulls in Japan come in 200ml, which is equivalent to about 6.7 ounces. U.S. standard is 8oz.) since the drive from Osaka to Fuji Speedway is around 5 hours….

Arrival at Fuji Speedway hours later. The Tactical Art guys arrived much earlier than the rest of the crowd to help Keisuke and HKS Japan set-up for the event…

Some of the other vehicles that arrived early that morning for HKS Premium Day…

Yasu’s S2000 with the front lip re-installed. His AP1 is so low that it wouldn’t be wise to drive five hours with that front lip on. His car was parked at the Tactical Art/Chronicles booth that day….

Hood removed to show off the HKS GT Supercharger kit….

Toyota Aqua on aggressive 3-piece Work Meister S1 with gold hardware….

EK9 Civic Type R on 15-inch Barramundi Design Dorados…

…representing Team Fatlegs, which is a pretty appropriate name considering the cars aggressive fitment…

One of the more interesting cars that day at the Custom Car Carnival was this R34 GTR-like vehicle that turned-out to be a Honda CR-V. While the car is incredibly bizarre and would probably earn quite a bit of hate-fodder, I actually appreciate the work that was put into it. Overall, the car is done quite well and the work speaks for itself. In many was, it is actually pretty fucking cool. Just the detail work in the air-brushing alone makes this CR-V/R34 hybrid aka the “Neo Panther” a quality build…

Under the hood of the CR-V is a turbocharged B-series motor…

…with quite a bit of custom fab work…

…and a Garrett turbocharger….

From the rear, it is pretty obvious that it is a CR-V, even with the custom front fenders and the flared rear quarters…

E92 M3 coupe looking mean on SSR Professor MS3s….

The Tactical Art/Chronicles booth at HKS Premium Day…

Masashi’s girlfriend Yuka was in charge of watching the booth that day…

Lexus IS on BBS LM-R wheels….

Beautiful BNR34 Skyline GT-R…

Gold-faced Volk Racing LE37T with matching gold big brake kit…

Chargespeed widebody Subaru S204 with Esprit carbon rear spoiler on 19-inch Volk Racing TE37SL….

i.Force, a newer forged wheel company in Japan, had a neat display featuring one of their wheels as a table with a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey…

E36 M3 convertible on i.Force FD-80H wheels…

The HKS booth at their Premium Day event…

On display in their booth was an HKS-tuned R35 and Keisuke’s USDM Scion FR-S….

In the paddock area of Fuji Speedway were a variety of race-prepped vehicles that were ready to make some laps around the track. Here is a Toyota 86 wearing HKS’ traditional graphical livery…

It wouldn’t be a HKS Premium Day event without stacks of meaty Advan Neova rubber….

Some work being done on the Top Fuel S2000RR…

Varis HKS “Kamikaze” R35 GTR….

And we’re gonna wrap it up for the day with a couple shots of the Varis widebody Mitsu EVO X on Volk Racing’s new ZE40 forged wheel. I love everything about this car, from the aero to the wheels, brakes, etc. Just sick. The feature about this build and what makes it even more unique is that it is twincharged, meaning that it is turbocharged and also running an HKS GT Supercharger….

Alright folks, that’s all for today. Second and concluding portion of the HKS Premium Day ’14 coverage comes tomorrow! Thanks for looking!!..